The Old Guard Makes 1 Big Change in Comics: Charlize Theron’s Andy

Netflix’s The old guard It’s a remarkably faithful comic adaptation, which makes sense, considering the script was written by Greg Rucka, the guy who wrote the comic. The real surprise is that the film is additive to the comic, which includes new character moments and more revelations about the world.

But Rucka makes a big change to The old guard source material, and it all has to do with Andromache the Scythian by Charlize Theron, the 6,000-year-old leader of a gang of immortal warriors.

[[[[Ed. Note: This piece contains spoilers for The old guard on Netflix.]

Photo: Aimee Spinks / Netflix

The presumption of The old guard is that Andy and his team are immortal: they don’t age, they can regenerate from any injury and even revive from fatal injuries in a matter of minutes. They have all been alive for hundreds of years, and Andy is older than the rest of them together.

But they also know that their immortality will be exhausted. Someday, without warning, they won’t get up again. And over the course of The old guard On Netflix, Andy realizes that he is no longer healing from his injuries. The revival he suffered in The old guardThe first fight scene was the last, and the next time it will be permanent. As Greg Rucka said when we asked him, “Your bags are being packed.”

This is not the case in the comic, where Andy keeps pulling all the shit out of her in the series’ second official arc. Polygon then asked writer Greg Rucka exactly where that change came from.

“Thematically,” he said, “[the change] It does something immediately, which you need, I think, in film form more than you need in a comic book. […] In Hollywood shorthand, we say “clock.” What is the clock?“

But Rucka didn’t want to simply impose a time limit on the climax of the film – he wanted something more focused on the character. Therefore, Andy discovers that he is no longer immortal.

“What it does is put Andy in immediate crisis,” said Rucka. “She absolutely has to face things she has not been willing to face, and she has to come to an end. One of the things she’s dealing with throughout the movie is [that] She wants it to end, or thinks she does. She thinks she wants to die. So, let’s give him what he wants and see how he handles it. There is a thematic dividend that can be derived from that. ”

What it gives Andy is a renewed drive to do exactly what he’s always done: save lives, protect his team, and keep fighting, no matter how long he has.

“It’s the kind of consideration that if I had thought about it when I was making the comic, I would have done it in the comic,” Rucka concluded. “Because it is, I think, the perfect illustration of their conflict.”